


December

by inkbender



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro Lives, Gen, Kinda, Time Travel Fix-It, Timey-Wimey, bad ending redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 10:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12792192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkbender/pseuds/inkbender
Summary: You feel it too, don’t you, sis? Something hasn't been right with Kurusu Akira since December 24.





	1. Chapter 1

“The atrocities this man has committed puts the works of Shido to shame,” says Akira, “and now that he’s arrived in Tokyo, we need to steal his heart at all costs as soon as possible.”

Ryuji snaps to attention. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s heard that sort of urgency in Akira’s voice--hell, probably not since they forced prime ministerial candidate Shido to confess to his crimes--but the emotion is back now, compelling them to arms despite their varying statuses of exhaustion in the throes of dead week.

Not that Ryuji’s been doing much studying honestly. Well, y’know, apart from the sessions Ann drags him to. Makoto on the other hand is completely off the radar; she still hasn’t responded to the emergency group text Akira sent out two hours ago.

“We’re in the middle of another Palace,” says Morgana skeptically. “You can’t be saying we should be involved with two at the same time.”

“The way this man operates, he’ll be long gone by tomorrow. The only chance we have is today.” Akira smirks.

Ann blanches as he pulls out his phone. “Wait--now? _Right_ now?”

Futaba hesitates but mirrors his actions on her laptop. “Okay, Leader. Got a name for me to research?”

Akira closes his eyes. “I’ve encountered him once before so I already have the keywords. Once was enough back then. But now…” A small smile flickers onto his lips. “Now I have all of you.”

He shows them his phone. Sure enough the Meta-Nav is up and running, just waiting for a fingerpress.

 _“Here?”_ Ryuji yells. “But this is LeBlanc!”

Yusuke flops back in his seat. “I wonder… does this man, like Shido, consider all of Japan to be his plaything?”

“If that’s the case, I can definitely see how he poses more of a threat than Shido’s political partners,” says Haru.

“So we’re all on the same page?” says Akira.

If Ryuji’s being honest, the expression Akira’s wearing right now doesn’t sit right on his face. Kinda smug. Self-assured. But Ryuji shakes the feeling off because this is Kurusu Akira, the guy who pulled him and Ann outta Kamoshida’s clutches, rescued Yusuke from Madarame, encouraged Futaba and Makoto to love and stand up for themselves, and enabled Haru to break free of Sugimura. He saved them all. So even though Ryuji’s brain might feel like it’s been dragged through three thousand years’ worth of events and dates and facts, even though he will still probably fail Japanese history, he definitely won’t fail Akira now.

“Wait!”

Akira pauses, finger hovering above the Meta-Nav widget. “Yeah?”

Haru squeaks as all eyes turn on her. “Um. What about Makoto? We can’t leave without her…”

“I’ll call her!” Ann says.

“It won’t do any good,” says Yusuke. “While our chat messages have certainly been sent, there is no indication they’ve been seen. I think her phone has either been silenced or is in another room entirely.”

Ann frowns as the dial tone goes to voicemail. “I guess…”

“Dammit!” says Ryuji. “How many times has she yelled at me for not having my phone? That Phantom Thieves chat is like the most important thing we got right now, finals be damned!”

He gets a punch in each shoulder, courtesy of Ann and Haru, for this.

Morgana’s tail swishes uncertainly. “Should we wait for her?” he asks.

Akira shakes his head. “No time. We’ll send somebody in a Safe Room to check back for her reply, but we don’t have time. Let’s go.”

* * *

Something is very wrong with this situation.

It’s not the brown pinstriped suit being at odds with the man’s red converse shoes, nor his unnaturally spiky hair, nor the fact he speaks _perfect_ Japanese despite being 100% Caucasian. The phone booth he’s leaning against is made entirely of wood; while there are glass panels they exist only near the top and are completely opaque, only letting some warm yellow light through.

What’s impossible is how this man (and the phone booth!) managed to get onto the roof without setting off the apartment alarm and drawing the ire of local law enforcement. Without even being spotted by the neighbors. Makoto’s been studying at home for finals since school ended; she would have noticed instantly had any sort of disturbance happened in this high riser. The man is an absolute mystery… and he’s asking her a question.

“March 21,” she says reflexively.

“Ooo, so close.” The man winces. “Well, by _close_ I mean _almost._ And by _almost_ I mean _roughly._ Not quite _roughly_ though, more like _around the general…”_ He waves his hand about in a vague sort of way. “Give or take a couple months basically. Not bad, all things considered. Blimey, it could’ve been worse. Could’ve ended up on Balime. Or Qorauthot. Or Cardiff.”

“How did you get up here? And when?”

“Spaceship. 6:00. Or 18:00, perhaps I should say. 24-hour clock and all.”

Makoto raises an eyebrow. Ignoring how he seems to be implying the wooden box behind him is some sort of vehicle, she says, “Two minutes ago.”

“Something like that.” He whips a thin metal tube out of his breast pocket and sweeps it around his body in a large circle. Its end lights up blue and it gives off a bizarre whirring sound like it’s scanning with its volume growing as it nears her and fading as he points it away. She flinches when his entire body jerks to face her, buzzing noise reaching a feverish pitch. Then he snaps it off, flips it into the air before catching the device and stowing it within his pocket once more. “Fascinating,” he murmurs. “You wouldn’t happen to know--”

“What was that? What did you do?”

“Hm? This?” He pulls out the silver tube again and grins ear-to-ear proudly. “Sonic screwdriver! Perfectly harmless, this thing is. Doesn’t kill, doesn’t wound, doesn’t maim. Very good at opening doors and detecting spatiotemporal anomalies.” He looks at it, then at her. “Notice anything odd around the neighborhood three months ago, hm?”

She hesitates but figures he probably knows already; Shido’s confessions made international headlines. “Shido Masayoshi withdrew from his campaign to become prime minister in November after confessing to--” Dozens of national crimes spring to mind, but the one that springs from her mouth first is “--murdering his own son.”

“Yes, yes, that too--hang on.” The man freezes, smile melting off his face instantly. “Who?”

“Akechi Goro.” Makoto pauses. “His illegitimate son.”

“No. No no no.” The man paces, running his hands through his wild hair. “That can’t be right. Akechi Goro, Akechi-kun, the second coming of the Detective Prince…” He whirls on her. “November! That was November, he disappeared in November. Yes! That massive energy spike definitely happened in December--Christmas Eve as usual, blimey, why does the end of the world as we know it have to happen every year on Christmas--but November! That’s probably where I’m headed. Possibly. Potentially. Maybe. Guess I’ll find out!” He knocks on the wood of the booth behind him and the door pops open without prompting, spilling warm golden light onto Makoto’s feet. “Well. Thanks for the directions! Allons-y!”

“Wait!” She springs forward but, for fear of being impolite, refrains from catching his arm. He thankfully pauses before he disappearing into the (tiny) phone booth (where is all that light coming from?). “I… I have a message for you.”

“Oh?” The man’s grin returns full force. “A message! Love those things. Always good. Sometimes. Usually. Until they aren’t. But a message coming from a benign temporal paradox such as you, it’s gotta be good.”

She stops, hand poised above her pocket. “Excuse me?”

“Residual artron energy and all, now c’mon!” He snaps his fingers before holding his palm out. “Note?”

She deposits the crumpled slip of paper into his hand. He barely glances at it before bringing it to his face and inhaling deeply, then _licking_ it. Ignoring her expression of shock and slight disgust, he flips it to face her. “This is your handwriting, isn’t it.”

She nods slowly.

“And you don’t remember writing it.”

She keeps nodding.

“That’s an easy enough fix.” He motions at the hastily scrawled note. “Well, come along…” He frowns, squinting at her signature. “What’s your name?”

She hesitates. That note was most certainly written by her hand and concluded with her unique signature. But… when had she written it? Why did this man sound so familiar with Akechi? And why did she feel so strongly that December 24 was a date to remember if she had no recollection of anything significant happening on the holiday?

“My name is Niijima Makoto.”

He smiles. “And I’m the Doctor.”

* * *

Niijima Sae receives the alert on her phone of a burglary in her apartment midway through work. She calls Makoto immediately; her little sister has spent every day of the past week studying at home, even forgoing her duties as a Phantom Thief. She’s sure Makoto can handle whatever is going on, but she can’t help but worry when Makoto’s dial tone goes to voicemail.

She’s packing her business case on the third call.

The hour-long commute has never felt longer. Sae stills her racing heart as she walks briskly from the metro to her apartment complex. Makoto’s fine. She was having trouble with the last two centuries of Japanese history and had spent all of dinner last night reciting dates and events from memory. So she’s simply turned off her phone to avoid all distractions. She’s proficient in aikido and fights shadows in an alternate dimension on a regular basis. She’s going to be alright.

The apartment is untouched, save for a hastily scribbled note on the dining room table.

_You feel it too, don’t you, sis? Something hasn't been right with Kurusu Akira since December 24._


	2. Chapter 2

The interior of the phone booth is not what she had expected. 

Makoto would like to think she has a rather open mind. Delving into other people’s cognitive worlds has broadened her horizons substantially, such that she’s become rather accustomed to having her expectations defied on a regular basis. She’ll need the ability to keep a level head in those situations if she wants to be the best police investigator she can be. As such, she allows herself only a moment to gawk at the coral-like vastness of the strange man’s peculiar spaceship (for it must be able to fly _ \--somehow-- _ that’s the only way it could have possibly arrived upon this rooftop) before returning her attention to her first and greatest mystery: the note written by her own hand. 

“I wrote this,” she says eloquently.

There’s a goofy grin on the Doctor’s face. “Eh, sounds to me like you  _ will  _ write this.”

The way he says it… doesn’t sound like a command or a threat. It sounds like a promise for the future but that doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense the longer she spends within this strange aircraft. 

Okay, slow down. Concentrate on what does. What  _ could  _ have happened. The only way, really: a cognitive version of herself from Sae’s Palace could have given this note to the Doctor for him to steal into her apartment and tape it to her bedroom door. Maybe he sneaked in while she took that five-minute shower to wake herself up from a study-induced stupor… but the burglar alarm hadn’t made a sound, and she hadn’t bothered to check the moment she read the note that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago.

That possibility assumes the Doctor can enter the cognitive world. However as far as Makoto is aware, her bond with Akira is the only reason she can literally get into people’s heads. Akira possesses the Wild Card, granting him the ability to bring physical things in and out of a world conjured entirely of psychological constructs. Nobody can access a Palace without Akira’s presence.

...Except Akechi.

But he passed away last year.

Every second she spends ruminating over possibilities to her impossible mystery is a second spent disrespecting her host, who’s looking at her somewhat expectantly. She doesn’t have the time to explore every possible option so she’s forced to conclude this mystery is unsolvable within the current scope of her knowledge… and that she must discard her preset assumptions if she hopes to crack the case.

“I know you,” she tries. 

The smile on the man’s face turns affectionate. “Brilliant, Niijima Makoto!” he exclaims, darting around the dashboard as he flips switches, spins a few wheels, and squeezes a rubber ball. “Absolutely brilliant. First time stepping into a dimensionally transcendental space and you don’t even question it. Straight to the evidence.” He pauses, hand curled around an impressively large lever. “Keep going, Makoto.”

There it is again: the overwhelming sense of familiarity coming from a complete stranger. Addressing her by her first name.  _ Akechi-kun _ instead of  _ Akechi-san.  _ But she’s sure she has never met this strange Caucasian man in her life, just as sure that she’s never written the note curled in her fist. Slight anger seeps into her mind at her inability to keep up. She’s missing a key piece of evidence that will bring all the disjointed pieces together, she knows it. She  _ will  _ know this man. She  _ will  _ write this note. She  _ will  _ discover how the Doctor knows Akechi and why he can’t believe Akechi is dead. 

Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

“People with outstanding desires can manipulate space through cognitive worlds. You know things you shouldn’t. Can’t. Unless… you can manipulate time,” she says, as the pieces slot into place and what remains becomes impossibly believable. His familiarity, Akechi, her note. Why the person who wrote it irrevocably trusts his man. “You’re a time traveler. You’ve already met me in my future. You came back because I told you to give me this note.”

“Wellll strictly speaking, I’m here because cause and effect dictates I need to introduce myself to you at an earlier point in your timeline, so three years from now you can chase me all across--spoilers. Probably shouldn’t lock your future in stone. Stabilizing points in time and timey wimey stuff.” The Doctor wilts slightly under her impatient gaze. “Just repeating what you’ll tell me in three years! Alright, so I did just arrive here from about ten minutes in your past… under order from your future self, but regardless! You’re brilliant, Makoto, have been since I first met you, so you must know why I’m here.”

The paper crumples in her fist. “You’re here to help me investigate.”

He nods. “Something hasn’t been right with Kurusu Akira since Christmas eve. Nothing has. And we’re going to find out why.”

Makoto hesitates. She glances outside through the open door at the Tokyo skyline awash in sunlit orange and red. The world outside is everything she’d ever wished for. All of Japan publicly praises, even worships the Phantom Thieves for taking down corruption within the government. Society promotes all the ideals the Phantom Thieves stand for, from equal opportunity to same-sex relationships to gender rights. Yet despite all that, despite all the  _ rights _ in it, this world still feels so  _ wrong. _

And it’s not her world.

“Take me to December,” she says. Her memory is fuzzy, but… “Take me to the bottom of Mementos.”

* * *

_ Ann knows something’s wrong the moment Akira taps the Metaverse app. _

_ Normally the transition between the real and cognitive world is seamless. Like, blink and you’ll miss the transition. One moment in the student council room, the next in a fantastical new world, still in their school uniforms or transformed into Phantom Thieves outfits. It’s happened so many times, the momentary loss of consciousness doesn’t bother her anymore. _

_ Normally they all know where they're headed before they hop between realities. Okumura, company, bank; Niijima, police station, casino; Shido, Diet building, ship: there’s always something to expect at the end of the tunnel. For Akira to skip over all that important information and rush them into a decision (especially without Makoto “brains of the Phantom Thieves” Niijima’s input) doesn’t sit well with Ann. _

_ Normally Akira asks for all of their input. As much as they all need Akira’s accompaniment to get into the cognitive world in the first place, he’s never gone in without them. They’re the Phantom Thieves. They’re a team. _

_ She opens her mouth. _

_ Akira taps the app. _

_ And the ground dissolves beneath Ann’s feet. _

_ A strangled shriek escapes her as she immediately plummets into a swirling vortex of space. Startled cries echo around her for a split second before they’re lost to the void--their bodies lost to the void--her mind lost-- _

_ Her sense of direction returns abruptly, dragging her along one undeniably straight path: freefall. She throws out all limbs for some semblance of control and it works--her tumbling stops, long enough for her to regain her bearings high, high, terrifyingly high above an alien landscape. _

_ It shouldn’t be possible to put an entire metropolis inside a massive glass sphere, but that’s all she can see while barely keeping her eyes open against roaring winds penetrating straight through her catsuit. The whole thing looks like a larger-than-life snow globe, only with a burnt amber color scheme. Like a desert, surrounded by nothing but rust-colored hills and desolate sandstone mountains rapidly growing closer and closer-- _

_ Radio static screeches in her ears before a welcome voice rings within her head. “Ann!” _

_ “Futaba!” Ann screams.  _

_ “Hold on--” _

_ The alien world tilts sideways. Ann smacks into nothingness, her vision going dark for a terrifying half-second before she recalibrates, sitting atop an ornately decorated cube in the middle of an empty, decrepit barnhouse. With its intricately beautiful design emphasizing circular patterns--cogwheels and planetary orbits and clocks--it feels entirely at odds with the dilapidated setting. _

_ A ticking noise resounds from within the cube. Like a war drum. Or a bomb. _

_ “Futaba?” she calls, kicking up dust and straw as she beats a hasty retreat to the far wall. The building groans loudly when she trips over her own feet and collapses a pillar. This entire place is so old, it’s going to fall down around her ears, she knows it. “Futaba, where am I? Where is everybody else?” _

_ “Haru? Akira? Where are you? Yusuke, I can’t hear you! Everybody’s all over the cognitive map, I can’t keep track!” _

_ Thrown off by the pretty cube’s ominous ticking, Ann slips out the first door she finds and arrives on ground level of the same world she’d seen from a literal bird’s eye view: nothing but the same dusty hills and mountains and far, far off in the distance, that massive citadel within a perfectly round glass globe. With nobody in sight, Ann raises her voice slightly. “Futaba? Please, Futaba--” _

_ “Hold on, Yusuke, I’ve got a reading… It’s Ann! Keep an eye out for Ann! And Ryuji, your connection is really unstable--gimme a second to strengthen your bond.” _

_ “Ann, is that you?” comes Yusuke’s voice a second later. It reverberates around her skull, as if coming from the bottom of a deep well yet from directly behind her at the same time, and she whirls about just to double check. Nothing but an old barn, empty save for that threatening cube. _

_ “Yusuke, I can hear you! Where are you?” _

_ “Send up a flare. I’ll find you.” _

_ Ann throws herself out the nearest door and puts a little distance between her and the (highly flammable) barnhouse before curling her fingertips around the edge of her mask. “Dance, Carmen!” _

_ The mask tears off easily enough, but what sits in her hand is slightly transparent and fades the longer she stares at it in disbelief. Stares at it… through the eyeholes of the mask still on her face. She repeats the action, once again pulling an ethereal version of her mask away from her head and leaving the corporeal form behind. Neither time does her Persona appear. _

_ “Futaba…” she says, fear lancing through her voice. “Futaba, what’s happening to me?” _

_ “I still can’t hear Morgana, Haru, but I know you’re close. I can’t see what this person’s cognitive world looks like but if the Tokyo Skytree hasn’t changed then head in that direction! Morgana’s signal is around there.” _

_ Ann balks. The landscape around her doesn’t resemble Japan in the slightest… or Earth, for that matter. “Are you sure Yusuke and I are in the same place?”  _

_ “Ann! It’s good to see you safe.” _

_ Yusuke jogs over, fox tail flicking behind him in concern. She closes the distance between them at a sprint and hugs him fiercely in relief, ignoring the way he tenses nervously at the intimate contact for half a second before releasing him.  _

_ “I’m so glad you’re alright,” she gasps. “This cognitive world isn’t like anything we’ve been through before. Does it keep changing on you too?” _

_ Yusuke’s brow furrows. “I was not aware this phenomenon occurred with you as well,” he says slowly. “I returned to consciousness slumped against a nonfunctional telephone booth in the middle of this desert. Though the door was locked, there was a single set of footprints leading from there to here. Did that trail belong to your feet?” _

_ Ann flinches. “I didn’t see anybody.” _

_ “There is nobody left to save.” _

_ Ann and Yusuke startle at the disembodied voice. It comes from everywhere, all around them, yet simultaneously Ann hears it within the tiny navigational corner of her mind usually reserved for Futaba’s consciousness. The voice is that of an old man’s, bone-weary and devoid of any empathy.  _

_ “Because the Time Lords have chosen to end all futures to ensure their own survival, I have no choice but to choose a future without Time Lords.” _

_ A shockwave of power pulses from the barn. Ann catches Yusuke as he stumbles and knows with absolute certainty: it came from the box. It came from the bomb. _

_ “We have to run,” Ann says, attempting to simultaneously pull Yusuke to his feet and drag him along. He slumps against her instead, absolute dead weight, and she screams the moment she realizes why: his entire body is wracked in pain, vivid blue light erupting from every orifice and pore and tear in his body. Yusuke’s mouth opens in a silent cry, releasing a single blue butterfly, before he disintegrates before her eyes. _

_ Seconds later, another butterfly joins the first. _

* * *

The Doctor pauses, hand still curled about the lever. “The last time I visited a parallel universe, I almost lost the TARDIS. Was almost deleted by a Cyberwoman mother too, but that’s a story for another time.”

That’s Japan. She can see her a little bit of her country under some cloud cover. It… looks so tiny. Seeing her world from outer space really puts things in perspective. If she’d had any doubts about the legitimacy of his time traveling ability (she hadn’t) then this abolishes it all. If space, why not time?

Makoto shakes her head. “Cognitive worlds aren’t entirely different planes of existence, more like… elevated states of reality? We find them based off locations in the real world, but each place is molded and shaped by somebody’s emotions and motivations to become entirely new Palaces. The Mementos under Shibuya are kinda different though. Instead of one person creating one Palace, it’s the combination of thousands of people’s collective consciousness. We haven’t reached the… the bottom… floor...”  She cringes as her memory falters. Her hand whips out, trying to find a coral-like support as her sense of balance spins out of control.

The Doctor catches her before she can take a tumble. Alarm pulses through her at his close proximity, but when she looks into his brown eyes she feels oddly comforted. His body radiates warmth and safety and she can’t help but relax. Just a little. He’s still an outsider and she can’t just trust him blindly, even if some alternative version of her does.

“Looks like a little bit of mental manipulation,” says the Doctor, lowering her until they’re both seated on the floor. “Mind if I take a look?”

She nods with a little bit of difficulty. Sure he can look, he’s sitting two inches in front of her. A physical exam, sure. 

“If there’s anything you don’t want me to see, just imagine shutting it behind a door. Hide it away. I promise I won’t look.”

She’s a little surprised when his fingers brush gently against her temples. On reflex, she closes her eyes--and abruptly finds herself sitting in the couch in Akira’s attic room. The Doctor sits on a chair across the coffee table from her, sipping from a cup of tea, not coffee. Why she knows this instantly she can’t say… 

“We’re in my mind,” she realizes. 

“I chose this setting because you’d find it familiar and comforting,” the Doctor says, placing the teacup on the table. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Akira’s room… the Phantom Thieves haven’t been here since they went public. She’s missed this place dearly; it harkens back to old days, harder days when they remained oppressed by adults, but back when they were still a united front fighting for the same cause. Now… 

“You think somebody’s messed with my head?” she says.

The Doctor leans back in his chair. “Tell me about Mementos,” he says instead. “Tell me what’s on the bottom floor.”

The room around them fizzles a bit like static on a TV screen. Then it morphs, skeletal spines and red water seeping out of the walls. The far wall stretches until it forms a massive white door etched with hieroglyphs.

“This is it,” says Makoto, unexpectedly out of breath. “There’s a door we can’t get past. We thought we’d be able to access it once more people supported us, but that hasn’t been the case. We haven’t been able to get any farther than--”

The door flickers. Shadowy figures descend the escalators towards jail cells glowing in the darkness before the door solidifies once again.

“No farther than that,” Makoto finishes uncertainly. One of the figures could’ve matched her own body--but she couldn’t remember that. “Not even nuclear power could breach that door.”

Makoto flutters back to reality on the iron grating of the Doctor’s impossible spaceship as the man sits back, hands falling away from her temples. He looks very troubled but masks it under a grin the moment he catches her looking. “Right then!” he exclaims, popping to his feet with renewed energy. “Now that I’ve got a lock on just where Mementos is… shouldn’t be too difficult to find! If we aim for Shibuya and land half a second off, half a dimensional step away, and seven paths down, we hypothetically,  speculatively, potentially, possibly, maybe could land in the right place at the right time.”

Makoto directs a raised eyebrow at him. “Weren’t you trying to get to December before you came here?”

“...True.” A smile spreads across his face as he curls his hand around a significant lever. “But I landed somewhere better instead.”

The lever falls under the weight of the Doctor’s hand with a resounding thud. The spaceship around them shakes with power--before a tremendous crash sends them both sprawling across the floor. Since Makoto hadn’t risen from her seat on the grate, she simply flops onto her back; the Doctor faceplants from his considerable standing height, but Makoto hasn’t the time to wince, so busy she is staring at the third presence in the ship’s transdimensional control room.

Beaten and bloody and still in his assassin’s outfit, Akechi lifts his head to meet her gaze and laughs self-depreciatingly. “I knew you’d come.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had an overwhelming desire to write for Persona 5, but with timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbliness. Ta-da!


End file.
